In daily life, behavioural adjustment is more prevalent among Japanese than Americans, while influence is more prevalent among Americans than Japanese. We tested whether these general findings extended to people’s perceptions of their own and others’ actions during the COVID-19 pandemic by conducting two online surveys between August and December 2020 (n=1240 and 823, respectively). We found that Japanese participants perceived higher levels of both normative and actual adjustment for both themselves and others than Americans did. Furthermore, Americans felt that their friends, subordinates, superiors, and local governments had influenced people’s behaviour significantly more, but that the national government had influenced people’s behaviour significantly less, than Japanese did. Finally, Americans reported that they were more likely than Japanese participants to use influence strategies in response to encountering someone not wearing a mask on the train.